The accident

On March 26th, we were in a car accident. We had just finished a wonderful walk on the lakefront with Mom Herbst & Jan. We were returning and had icecream on the brain (well Rob & I did anyway.) When a guy ran a stop sign and hit the door I was sitting at. Luckily we were all fine.

In the few seconds before we were hit I leaned over to hug Rob--which probably is what helped there to be little injury. The car hit my door, and since Rob was hugging me--I was away from the impact and had his arms to shelter me. Unfortunately, I was unable to shelter Rob's face. My head went into his eye (and you can see the damage that I caused.) We went to the hospital via ambulance (since we had no other way to get there--and we wanted to make sure the baby was fine.) After many hours of waiting the doc pretty much said "both of you look good!" He cleaned up Robby's eye, which looked a bit painful since the blood had dried and it had continued to swell. Then he charged us $600 (not including the ambulance fee.) Healthcare costs are outrageous considering the long wait and the fact that the doc was only with us about 10 minutes. Oh yeah--I forgot to mention that Rob lost most of his eyelashes due to the trauma.

Well after that I was sent up to L & D for observation for four hours. I guess this is mandatory for anyone who is in an accident (and is pregnant). This was interesting since I had already been in ER for four hours with little regard to my pregnancy.

Anyway the nurses there were wonderful and spoiled me. I was beginning to think that this labor and delivery stuff might not be too bad. However it turns out that I was having some preterm labor contractions. They ended up keeping me overnight and continued to watch. So I sort of got my first taste of labor (except there was no pain--all I could feel was the muscles tightening and loosening.)

Rob was wonderful!!! He brought me food and stayed the night with me on the very uncomfortable mattress placed on the floor. I didn't sleep much because it wasn't my bed and honestly I was worried. But everything worked out fine. It was not time for Robessica to meet us yet.

So pictures are below of Rob's eye. I also got a very minor black eye from his shoulder, and there is a picture of me at 28 weeks. These were all taken 3 days after the accident.

Oh a few funny side notes---The nurses thought Jan was my mother--so we kept up that charade very well--however Jan really struggled when the nurse asked her to fill out some paperwork. The L & D provides sexy one size fits all underwear for the ladies. Ohhhh--and they have a heater that they keep blankets in. Well that's all for now.

20 weeks

In February, we went in for our 20 week ultrasound. We decided that we did not want to know the gender of Junior. The ultrasound went really well. In fact we have several minutes of actual live videotape. (At one point on the tape the baby opens up his/her little hand and almost seems to wave--cute little fingers!) The baby is healthy and was estimated to be several ounces bigger than the average baby. This doesn't arise concern to others, but since my mom all had 9 and 10 pound babies, I am concerned about how big this baby will get. (After all--I have to do all the work.) Below are pictures from the ultrasound. The baby looks kind of alien in the facial pictures. We love the picture that shows the profile and the little foot. How neat it is to see all the little ribs. Be aware that the baby is a little over a pound at this point and has developed so much! How cool!

Little Robessica

So, in early October Rob and I discovered that we were expecting our first little one. We are both very excited and yet very scared about the new member of the family. Below are pictures of the ultrasound taken at 8 weeks. Yes, we are both proud parents of a kidney bean with limbs. We kept the secret to ourselves for a very long time. We figured that we should get adjusted to the idea of being parents before we told the world.

We revealed our secret to our parents at Christmas. We had copies made of the ultrasound, framed, and wrapped them as a present. Mom Irvin was the first to open hers. Before she had it open she said "Is this a picture of my grandson?" She was referring to Bear--but Rob and I didn't realize. So I answered "maybe." She was very excited. My brother Joel, was the other memorable opening of the picture. He looked at Rob and said--"got one pass the old goalie--eh?"

Mom Herbst opened hers and began to ball. Jan however couldn't tell what the picture was. This was a humorous situation. So Mom is pointing the picture out to Jan--not speaking any words, and Jan is confused. I dont' remember if she actually figured it out or if one of us had to finally tell her what the picture was.

When we gave the present to Pops, he was elated. He jumped out of his chair and gave Rob and I big hugs and ran to Debi. Debi however had no idea what the picture was either. It was her son Ryan that had to finally tell her what she was looking at.

So Christmas was a great time. MOst of our friends and family, however did not find out until January. Some even Febuary. (YEs, I was able to easily hide it for that long.)

I am thankful that I had little to no morning sickness, however I did have some problems with my iron levels and pretty bad cold in January (the reason some people did not find out until February.)

Testing ...one two three...checking if this is working..... This is Bear when we first got him (May 2005). We named him bear because he was supposed to be a large dog--and we figured he would have a personality to fit...

Well-- he doesn't. Bear should be named tweety. (Rob says pussy cat.) I say Tweety because his constant whining reminds me of a bird. But we love him anyway.

So this is our first blog entry. Hopefully we will have more up to date one's soon!